Ice cream Sandwich

This morning my daughter Leia came into the living room with tears in her eyes holding an ice cream sandwich. Sara followed her in asking me to tell Leia that she could not have it. Sara asks me to do the dirty work because Leia will listen to me more than her. I told Leia now wasn’t the right time to be eating ice cream and redirected her attention to something else and in seconds Leia let go of the thoughts of eating the ice cream sandwich. A brilliant observation of the mind!

 

I paused for a moment and realized how cool that was. Leia was truly suffering when she realized that there was a possibility that her desire to eat the ice cream sandwich was not going to be fulfilled. When we look at Leia’s suffering it comes from grasping to a thought again and again eventually bringing tears. A simple parenting trick of redirecting your child’s attention helps teach them to “let go” of the thoughts and move on to the next thoughts or experience. This ability to let go of thought is an innate part of the human mind. Leia displayed it wonderfully this morning with the help of some trick parenting.

 

Letting go is the hinge within the Four Noble Truths of the Buddhist Philosophy. The four truths are: Suffering, Causes of Suffering, release from suffering and cultivation of non-suffering state.  I will focus on this for the next few blogs